Sex or politics? Politics or sex? Director-writer Philippe Diaz can’t decide what “Now & Later” should be about. So he mixes the two — and comes up with a murky mess.
We’re in downtown LA, where disgraced banker Bill (James Wortham) is forced to lay low on his way to Nicaragua. He’s jumped bail rather than go to jail for eight years after his conviction for financial wrongdoing.
An illegal immigrant named Angela (Shari Solanis) takes him in for a few days. It takes no time for the two to get into hot and heavy sex, which — with graphic full-frontal nudity — looks as if it could be the real thing.
It takes a bit longer for Angela to unleash a tirade against the US for, among other things, supporting dictators around the world. (Hosni Mubarak isn’t mentioned, but he’s the first person to come to mind.)
We learn that she had a traumatic childhood in Nicaragua, where her parents were killed by the US-supported Contras.
Then again, Bill and Angela have little in common. She’s a free spirit who lives for the moment; he’s always planning for the future.
He’s turned on by her sexuality, but what could she possibly see in this repressed, married man? Diaz offers no hints.
The dialogue is banal and the acting, especially Wortham’s, is unconvincing. Even the sex and nudity, of which there is a lot, grows tiresome after a while.